Streetcar News

[Ed T.]

The beautiful new long-under-construction ROW on The Queensway already has a slow operation zone, at the west end of the bridge before the curve to enter Humber loop.

Also, and quite inexplicably, the platforms at Colborne Lodge Drive don't have any pedestrian signal request buttons. You have to hope that someone on one of the street corners pushes the button....or you can make a dash for it.

[63 Ossington]

Overhead damage and disablement still ongoing at St Clair West.. from 3:00 PM (according to the Twitter timestamp). Supposedly EB car 4461 had its pantograph up going into the station and it wrecked the overhead at the EB 512 platform. Powered off, and was coupled up to 4437 which was behind it around 7 ish. 4461 was ditched in the EB throughfare track powered off, fitted with wheel chocks and uncoupled from 4437 shortly after. 4437 is now tracking at Hillcrest, and 4461 still tracking at SCW, waiting time quoted 4 hours.

The line was bypassing the station loop; station service was at Bathurst and Tweedsmuir. Buses were loading at street level with on-street looping.

Photos are of 4461. Not sure how damaged the panto is - looks like it has been tied down.

[WoodbineSecondExit]

7 minutes ago, 63 Ossington said:

Overhead damage and disablement still ongoing at St Clair West.. from 3:00 PM (according to the Twitter timestamp). Supposedly EB car 4461 had its pantograph up going into the station and it wrecked the overhead at the EB 512 platform. Powered off, and was coupled up to 4437 which was behind it around 7 ish. 4461 was ditched in the EB throughfare track powered off, fitted with wheel chocks and uncoupled from 4437 shortly after. 4437 is now tracking at Hillcrest, and 4461 still tracking at SCW, waiting time quoted 4 hours.

The line was bypassing the station loop; station service was at Bathurst and Tweedsmuir. Buses were loading at street level with on-street looping.

Photos are of 4461. Not sure how damaged the panto is - looks like it has been tied down.

Wasn't there a recent St. Clair shutdown used to convert the overhead in the station to new style for the changeover to pans this fall?!

[63 Ossington]

28 minutes ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

Wasn't there a recent St. Clair shutdown used to convert the overhead in the station to new style for the changeover to pans this fall?!

It has been nightly weekday shutdowns after midnight since April, and supposedly it's supposedly behind schedule and not complete (despite tomorrow scheduled as being the last day of work before panto operation)

[lip]

13 hours ago, Ed T. said:

The beautiful new long-under-construction ROW on The Queensway already has a slow operation zone, at the west end of the bridge before the curve to enter Humber loop.

Good to see the TTC's mission of perpetually slowing down streetcar service down even more is going well. Is there an actually a legitimate reason as to why there's a speed restriction in that area now? It makes sense that streetcars would have to slow down before entering that curve, but there's no need to institute a speed restriction along a good stretch of that area..

[Ed T.]

9 hours ago, lip said:

Is there an actually a legitimate reason as to why there's a speed restriction in that area now?

There's a wet or dark looking joint in the concrete where the downslope from the bridge ends and level track begins. I suppose that could be the issue.

[Genius101]

We're finally seeing the Flexities being deployed on the 501 as of today, one step closer towards providing a 100% accessible streetcar network. 

[leylandvictory2]

12 minutes ago, 110B West Pickering said:

4479 on the 501L right now

yup.  501 will use Flexities baring there is no shortage of them.

[newflyerinvero]

Should the exposure be 501 and not 501L? 501'L's were used when buses ran on the 501.
Were there other streetcar routes that returned to full streetcar service this board?

[ttc rider]

The 501 is now using some Flexities on the weekends (primarily on Sundays, I suspect) because the 511 has reversed to bus operation and the Flexities that ran on 511 on the weekends were deployed elsewhere. Today, there were a maximum of 11 Flexity cars on 501. I expect there will be more next Sunday, when there will no longer be unscheduled extras running on 509 & 511 due to the CNE.

[63 Ossington]

Spent a few mins to check out the new overhead throughout St Clair West yesterday (Saturday) - majority of the station loop appears complete; most work needed is the EB 512 platform area. The traction contact bars are suspended lower than the existing trolley overhead (obviously for clearance) so I assume for the time being that will be kept to allow compatibility for C's. However they can also immediately start dismantling it upon activation of the contact bars so we'll see which route they take.

[dowlingm]

Would TTC thinking keep trolley compatibility on part of St Clair to cover some sort of issue with a C entering Hillcrest, or leaving but unable to turn south onto Bathurst?

[Orion V]

I don't see any Flexities on 501 today (Monday) when they are running on a holiday schedule and 511 is using buses. Did they gave the extra ones a rest today now that a few more ALRVs are back?

[ttc rider]

1 hour ago, Orion V said:

I don't see any Flexities on 501 today (Monday) when they are running on a holiday schedule and 511 is using buses. Did they gave the extra ones a rest today now that a few more ALRVs are back?

It is a holiday today, however there are many Flexity cars running as unscheduled extras on both the 509 and 511 due to the CNE. In total, I am counting 69 Flexity cars in service right now - less than the 74 we have had yesterday, but still this is a fairly usual number of cars out for a Sunday/holiday.

[Orion V]

3 hours ago, ttc rider said:

It is a holiday today, however there are many Flexity cars running as unscheduled extras on both the 509 and 511 due to the CNE. In total, I am counting 69 Flexity cars in service right now - less than the 74 we have had yesterday, but still this is a fairly usual number of cars out for a Sunday/holiday.

Thought 511 is using bus since yesterday?

[ttc rider]

7 minutes ago, Orion V said:

Thought 511 is using bus since yesterday?

It is. But, as I said, due to the CNE, there are Flexity cars being operated as unscheduled extras as well. I am counting at least five Flexities on 511 right now.

[Transit geek]

12 hours ago, dowlingm said:

Would TTC thinking keep trolley compatibility on part of St Clair to cover some sort of issue with a C entering Hillcrest, or leaving but unable to turn south onto Bathurst?

If that would be so, that would probably be the brief stretch of St. Clair westbound from Bathurst to Vaughan. And that only until the CLRVs are all gone, which will be quite a while after pans go up on all of St. Clair.

[63 Ossington]

EB 512's are dewiring again more frequently (but not every car) going into the EB throughfare track (former spare track). Again the shoe is following the WB overhead from the frog.

[skyfirenet]

Looks like 4447 is going to need some TLC.

 

[WoodbineSecondExit]

10 minutes ago, skyfirenet said:

Looks like 4447 is going to need some TLC.

 

That looks like Queen and Parliament? Is this what the twitter alert about "mechanical problems" on the 501/502 is referring to? They've been diverting around it for several hours now. Downed overhead is a mechanical problem of sorts.

[skyfirenet]

36 minutes ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

That looks like Queen and Parliament? Is this what the twitter alert about "mechanical problems" on the 501/502 is referring to? They've been diverting around it for several hours now. Downed overhead is a mechanical problem of sorts.

Yep. The interesting thing is that the pole was also up. (They had lowered it by the time I took this photo)

[WoodbineSecondExit]

46 minutes ago, skyfirenet said:

Yep. The interesting thing is that the pole was also up. (They had lowered it by the time I took this photo)

Did the pantograph take out any overhead? It's hard to tell from the photo.

[63 Ossington]

Mechanical problems was also the announced delay for the St Clair West incident lasting ~4 hours.. this is the second (known) time in two weeks that the panto was mysteriously up in non-designated areas of the network damaging the overhead.

May or may not have been a consequence of the St Clair West incident but 512 EB cars are still dewiring with increased frequency at the frog.

[skyfirenet]

33 minutes ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

Did the pantograph take out any overhead? It's hard to tell from the photo.

Not that I could tell. However, they may have repaired it by the time I was walking by.

19 minutes ago, 63 Ossington said:

Mechanical problems was also the announced delay for the St Clair West incident lasting ~4 hours.. this is the second (known) time in two weeks that the panto was mysteriously up in non-designated areas of the network damaging the overhead.

May or may not have been a consequence of the St Clair West incident but 512 EB cars are still dewiring with increased frequency at the frog.

I can't help but wonder if this is karma catching up with the TTC over their decision to save a buck by slowing down the pan upgrades to the overhead.

[WoodbineSecondExit]

It's 10:30pm and the diversion is still ongoing. This would put it up at near 7 hours and counting by my count. I wonder what the hold up with moving it out of the way is.

(I'm hoping it's gone by morning rush hour)